{TABLE} Sonata in G, Hob xvi:6 ......................... Haydn Variations serieuses in D minor, Op 53 ......... Mendelssohn Andante spianato and Grand Polonaise, op 22 .... Chopin Sonata in C minor D 958 ........................ Schubert {/TABLE} ANYA Alexeyev brought such freshness to her recital at the NCH John Field Room on Monday that one would need a fresh set of adjectives to do justice to her playing. She was young and had the fire of youth; but she also had the maturity to comprehend what each composer was up to. She responded instantly to each fluctuation of mood and conveyed the formality of Haydn, the complexity of Mendelssohn, and Chopin's mixture of the romantic and the demotic with extraordinary skill and striking mastery of the techniques of piano playing.

Haydn's Sonata in G was played with a perfect sense of period: not too fast, not too slow, not too loud, not too soft, but always with a sense of suppressed excitement. Mendelssohn's Variations serieuses brought to the fore her ability to bombing several strands of melody, allowing each its own importance and never confusing the lines.

Chopin's Andante was the essence of tenderness and the almost rambunctious Grand Polonaise seemed almost to bring a smile to the bust of John Field.

The solemnity of Schubert's Sonata in C minor, the third last he wrote, offered the greatest challenge of all, but here too the music was never less than purposeful, for the player communicated a sense of direction allied to an apprehension, of the organic nature of the piece.